Washington, Aug.3 (ANI): Charging the Republicans with playing a role in manufacturing a crisis on resolving a possible default of US debts, President Barack Obama has urged Washington to move on from it and shift its attention to putting Americans back to work.
Revealing his frustration with the bitter debate and brinkmanship that took the United States to the verge of a first-ever default, he criticized Congress for only focusing when "there is a timer ticking down" and a "disaster looming".
"It shouldn't take the risk of default and the risk of economic catastrophe to get folks in this town to work together," he said in the Rose Garden.
He added: "Our economy didn't need Washington to come up with a manufactured crisis to make things worse."
Obama spoke minutes after the bill to cut spending by 2.4 trillion dollars in two stages and raise the US borrowing limit by the same amount was passed the Senate by 74 to 26 votes.
It cleared the House of Representatives late on Monday.
Obama pledged to "fight for what the American people care most about - new jobs, higher wages and faster economic growth".
The White House is concerned that the protracted debt debate has shifted attention from its attempts to lower an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent.
The president called on Congress to pass various items of legislation to that end, including reform of patent law, several free trade deals, and the establishment of an infrastructure bank.
Having lost the battle to include new tax revenues in the debt deal, the president stressed that he would insist on tax reform and closing loopholes for the wealthy when a special committee of Congress set up by the bill meets in the autumn to agree on the second tranche of cuts.
"We can't balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the biggest brunt of this recession," he said, suggesting that the rows that have bogged down Washington for weeks will resurface within months.
Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, took a swipe at the Tea Party members, who stormed Washington in the 2010 mid-term elections promising to control spending.
Failed legislation supported by Tea Party Republicans to force the government to balance the budget indefinitely took negotiations over reducing the 14.3 trillion dollar debt to the wire.
Both sides said the deal did not give them everything they wanted, but praised the belated compromise and agreed more needed to be done to reduce ballooning deficits. (ANI)
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